Global warming may not be the culprit after all when it comes to Artic changes

Climate data can be difficult to analyze. Take for instance global temperature changes. Whereas the Northern Hemisphere has been warming, the Southern half of the planet is cooling. While Antarctic Ice is at near-record levels, the Northern Pole is warming at an unprecedented pace-- much faster than global warming models predict.

A new study published in the journal Nature identified a possible cause for this discrepancy. It identifies a natural, cyclical flow of atmospheric energy around the Arctic Circle. A team of researchers, led by Rune Graversen of Stockholm University, conclude this energy flow may be responsible for the majority of recent Arctic warming.

The study specifically rules out global warming or albedo changes from snow and ice loss as the cause, due to the "vertical structure" of the warming ... the observed warming has been much too weak near the ground, and too high in the stratosphere and upper troposphere.

This study follows hot on the heels of research by NASA, which identified "unusual winds" for rapid Arctic ice retreat. The wind patterns, set up by atmospheric conditions from the Arctic Oscillation, began rapidly pushing ice into the Transpolar Drift Stream, a current which quickly sped the ice into warmer waters.

A second NASA team, using data from the the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite, recently concluded that changes in the Arctic Oscillation were "mostly decadal in nature", rather than driven by global warming.

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Hotter air holds more moisture, which is expected to increase snowfall in some areas of the antarctic. It doesn't seem entirely clear, based on what I've read, what process is responsible for the increase in ice mass in the core of the antarctic. Or the loss in mass in other parts.

1/5 of a degree temperature rise over the last 2 centuries, yes. But again, you've missed the point here. Most of that temperature increase occurred during the very rapid global warming seen from 1900-1940, a period in which industrialization had not yet substantially altered CO2 levels.

Over a centuries long scale, the entire planet has warmed...we did, after all, just recently exit an ice age. But warming in the 19th century warming, coupled with cooling today, 200 years later, does not fit with human-induced global warming.

No, I haven't missed the point at all. YOU are clearly missing the point...the paper does not debunk at all the idea that humans are causing the planet to warm from increased CO2 emissions. The scientists who wrote that paper acknowledge that and implicitly support AGW through their research. You're just stubborn. The lead author clearly stated in an interview that the warming amplification in the arctic is from a combination of AGW and a change in energy transport which may also be caused by AGW. Nobody is arguing about where the increase in greenhouse gases are coming from, and the author clearly suggests that greenhouse gases are contributing to the warming there.